Branching Paths
by Darkmekmon
Summary: A story about how Cynthia and Steven became champions. Starts with OCs, the romance and angst won't be very strong and will be later on in the story.
1. Chapter 1

A/N- Alright, a planned fic! XD So, I do not own Pokemon, nor do I own its characters. Although that would be AWESOME~! :D

*Ahem* -.-; now to the story...

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Alan was walking up to his apartment building when it happened.

The day had been fairly good so far, really. Alan had just become the high school baseball team's pitcher, and his crush had just transferred into all of his classes. He had thought himself lucky, since they also lived in the same building and always walked home together.

She was laughing at a joke he'd made about their least favorite teacher. She stumbled slightly, and stopped laughing. Alan looked at her with worry, as a frown spread over her features.

"Are you okay?" he asked her. She nodded, and Alan let her lean on his shoulder. When they were about to pass through the doorway, though, she slipped off and fell to the ground. Needless to say, Alan panicked.

"Lila? LILA!" he cried. The doorman whipped out his cellphone, and the last thing Alan heard before collapsing himself was the sound of sirens. He inhaled sharply, taking in the faint scent of seawater and a slightly stronger smell of crisp forest leaves, before his vision faded to black.

Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.

Alan blinked his eyes open in confusion. Where was he?

Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.

The steady beeping of the heart rate monitor next to him brought a flood of memories back. He Looked around wildly, before his eyes came to rest on Lila's sleeping form. Alan sighed in relief, and a doctor rushed over.

"You're awake!" the doctor exclaimed in surprise. "We thought the two of you would be unconscious for much longer!" Alan blinked, and asked what day it was. "August 19th, a Thursday. You slept for over a day."

A whole day! Holy crap! He missed an entire day of school, and he also missed the first practice of the season. Alan looked over at Lila again, and the doctor noticed where he had been looking.

"Is she your girlfriend?" the doctor asked. Alan blushed a deep red, and shook his head quickly. The room spun, and he swayed a bit from the force of his whipping around. The doctor just laughed, and the sobered. "She seems to be in a little worse condition than you..." She trailed off while checking his chart. "...Alan," she finished with a small smile.

He felt dizzy, and then very queazy. Before he knew it, his head fell back and hit the pillow it had been laying on. The doctor's mouth dropped open, and as Alan's vision hazed over again, he thought he smelled fire...

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A leaf fell onto his face. Alan's nose twiched involuntarily, and he sneezed. He heard a soft giggle, and then felt something wet snuffling at his left cheek. He squeezed his eyes more tightly shut in protest, and made a pathetic attempt to slap the thing away. Instead of something solid against his hand, though, he felt someone grip his wrist tightly.

"Don't hit him," a feminine voice growled. Alan blinked his eyes open in surprise.

"Lila?" he gasped in disbelief. The edges of her mouth turned up in a smile, and she pressed a finger to her lips. She pointed with her other hand.

Alan turned over onto his side to look. There was a little brown bird carrying what looked like a leek or something similar. It had three tufts of feathers sticking up on its head, and a little black V on its forehead. He blinked, and then looked questionally at Lila, but she was currently sneaking up behind the bird. He opened his mouth to ask her what the heck she was doing, but a small blue paw clapped over his mouth, effectively shutting him up.

Lila pounced onto the bird, and it let out a trill-squawk. She wrestled with the thing for a few seconds, and then pulled out a little red and white orb. She pressed a button, and a stream of red light engulfed the thing. When the light disappeared, the bird was nowhere to be seen. Lila bounced over to Alan, and he asked her what the heck was going on around here.

"Oh!" she exlaimed. "This teenager lost two Farfetch'd! I was helping him catch them." True to her word, a little brunette boy, about ten or eleven, rushed over.

"Did you find them?" he asked anxiously. "My master will kill me if he finds out I lost those Farfetch'd..."

"Yep!" Lila chirped. She held out two of the red and white orbs to the boy.

"Oh, thank you, thank you!" he cried. "I can't thank you enough!" He paused, pocketed the orbs, and then pulled out a little gray CD, and handed it to Lila. "Here! Maybe this will help! It's the HM Cut...but you can't use it unless you have the Gym badge from Azalea's gym." At this, he dashed off.

Alan's head was spinning. Azaela? Gym badge? HM? Farfetch'd?

He looked at Lila blankly. She giggled at his confused expression.

"I'd better take you to see Professor Elm."

"Who?"

"Elm. He's the professor of this region: Johto. He'll explain everything to you, and you can get a starter of your own!" Lila seemed very cheery. "For now we'll have to share my Pokegear, but soon you'll be able to get your own, and a trainer card." She fumbled with a pile of things over to the side of where Alan was laying, and pulled out a small, rectangular piece of plastic. "This one's mine, see?"

Alan reached out and plucked it from her hand.

"Lillian-Bronze trainer" was on top, and a picture of Lila took up the right hand side. The rest had information similar to what a driver's license might, such as gender, age, eye color, etc. The only two additions it had were "region" and "starter."

Alan stared at it for a while, before "Johto" and "Cyndaquil" clicked in his mind.

"We're in...the Pokemon world!" he exclamed. Lila, now Lillian, sweatdropped.

"Took you long enough," she muttered. "Now come onn!" she whined, and began dragging him through the forest by his shirt collar.

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Five hours later, Alan and Lillian stood in front of an older man, Professor Elm. He asked her about an egg, and she replied that it had hatched into a Togepi. She brought it out, and he exclaimed over it for a while, before gently handing the small Pokemon back to Lillian.

"Alan, is it?" asked Elm. "I believe you wanted a Pokemon?"

He nodded, and the man motioned towards a table that held ten pokeballs. He rushed over to it, and began clearing them away until there were only three. Alan decided to use eenie meenie miney moe to pick one. He lifted it off the table, and tossed it into the air. A small gator-like creature appeared, with blue skin and a red ridge on its back.

"Totodiiiile," it croaked, and Alan blinked at it.

Elm handed Alan a pokegear, pokedex, trainer card, bag, and a belt for clipping in pokeballs. Alan attached Totodile's ball to this, and stuffed everything else into the bag. Lillian waved to Elm, and then dashed out of the lab, leaving Alan to attempt sprinting after her.

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Soooo? What'd you think? I think it wasn't too bad, if I do say so myself...This fic is probably not going to be very long, and just to let you know, I finished this at 1:00 in the morning my time, so it's probably not top-quality. But then, none of my stuff ever is top-quality, so... :)


	2. Chapter 2

Eeeh! Sorry for updating so late, I temporarily lost track of my plot bunnies while I was looking for one for NaNoWriMo...(national novel writing month, it's in November XD)

Disclaimer: I own none of the Pokemon mentioned here, nor any Gym Leaders, Elite 4, Professors, or other characters in the story from the game.

Aaaanyways, here's the new chapter! XD Enjoy!

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When Alan woke up in the morning, he had a short panic attack as a result of his starter Pokemon waking him up with a squirt of water to the face.

He opened his eyes to see two huge orbs with red irises, as well as a mouth full of teeth below them. He had temporarily forgotten everything that happened the day before, so Totodile was a *bit* more than he could take at six in the morning.

When Alan came to himself about five minutes later, Lila, or was it Lillian now? was staring at him with one eyebrow up, arms crossed, and a foot tapping impatiently on the ground. Alan looked down to see that he was only dressed in his boxers, and muttered an apology to Lillian as he turned around and threw on a sweater, jeans, and some shoes.

He returned Totodile to his Pokeball, and dashed out to where Lillian was now waiting, in the Goldenrod Pokemon Center's lobby. He slung his backpack over his shoulder and as Lillian dashed out to the Gym, he fumbled with his belt buckle.

As he wasn't paying attention, he stumbled into a man about his height. He looked up to apologize, and was fixed with a disapproving glare from light green eyes. The teen's hair was short and as green as his eyes, with a thin section that stuck out and arched backwards from his forehead over the rest of his scalp. He had a tight, black tank top on, and orange jeans with a tan belt.

"I'm so sorry," Alan began, but the teen's hand whipped out and pressed two of its fingers to Alan's lips, silencing him.

"My name's Aaron," he growled, "and I'm destined for Sinnoh League Champion. I challenge you to a battle!" Alan blinked, and felt scared. He only had his Totodile and a couple Pokemon he'd picked up in the mad dash from New Bark Town to Goldenrod City that Lillian had led.

Lillian ran back to him, and whacked him on the shoulder in her usual manner, with a huge smile. "Do it!" she exclaimed. "Your Pokemon can't be that bad, and they'll only grow from the experience!" Alan's instincts buckled under the pressure of his crush and the irritated stranger.

"A-alright," he mumbled. "I'll b-battle you..." Aaron, surprisingly enough, suddenly sported a friendly grin as he escorted the two trainers to Route35, just north of the city.

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Alan gulped as Totodile faced off against Aaron's Beedrill, an oversized bee-like Pokemon with two long lances for its two hands.

"Poison sting!" called out Aaron. The lances on the bee began glowing a sickly purple color, before it rushed at Totodile.

"Um...hold it off with a strong water gun!" Alan yelled hesitantly. Totodile sprayed a powerful jet of water at the insect, but that didn't hold it off for long.

Beedrill broke through the water barrier, and Alan franically told it to dodge, then fire another water gun. Totodile growled, before launching itself at the Pokemon and clamping down on its head, dodging the poisoned attack.

"N-no, Totodile!" Alan called to it. "Stop! You're hurting it, um...let go and attack with, um...scratch?" he mumbled. The Pokemon ignored him, letting go with a redied Water Gun to blast its opponent away. Totodile then fixed the Beedrill with a glare, and the Pokemon's wings stopped beating as fast.

The Beedrill was ordered to use Pursuit, but Totodile avoided the attack easily and crunched down on the Poison Bee Pokemon's arm. This time, frost was seen spreading a little ways from the little lizard's mouth.

Alan fumbled for his Pokedex and looked up Totodile's stats. What he saw made his eyebrows go so far up into his head that they disappeared into his hairline.

"Totodile, Level 21, Water type

Gender: Male Ablility: Torrent Nature: Rash

Move List: Water Gun, Bite, Scary Face, Ice Fang"

"Level...21...?" He whispered to himself, astonished. Lillian clapped him on the back, and he winced as she hit the spot that was currently bruising from yesterday when she'd done something similar. The girl really did not know her own strength.

"Seee? There's a reason that I run so much. Helps level up."

The Beedrill collapsed as soon as Totodile let go, and Alan returned the lizard. Aaron fed his bug Pokemon a Revive, and then sprayed it with a Potion before returning it.

The green-haired boy was silent for a while, and then he walked over to Alan.

"You need some badges," he told the Rookie quietly. "Most trainers with Pokemon that strong would be challenging Morty up in Ecruteak already, and they'd probably win." There was a pause, and Aaron leaned in towards Lillian and Alan both. "I heard something you two might be interested in. Whitney is hosting two other gym leaders, Pryce and Morty, in her Gym. Trainers traveling in groups of three are allowed to challenge them with a three on three battle, and if the trainers win, they get all three badges. You two want to battle with me?"

The two agreed heartily.

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Lillian had collected a couple fire types besides Cyndaquil from trainers she'd met, and so Pryce was mainly busy with her.

This left Morty and Whitney to practically a two on two against Aaron and Alan. The older boy had told Alan and Totodile about Normal type moves on Ghost types. Alan, however, opted to use a Zubat instead of Totodile.

The Zubat had gone through immense training the previous day as well, and so a couple of Confuse Rays were nothing to it, but devestating to Whitney and Morty. The little blue bat successfully turned both opponent Pokemon against each other, so the win was simple for Aaron and Alan. Alan's Zubat also shared the final blow on Pryce with Lillian's Ponyta.

Silence filled the Gym, and the two older Gym Leaders handed over their badges to the trio without comment, but Whitney let out a sob and rushed off.

Morty let out a sigh, and told them to wait for a second, before rushing after her.

Ten minutes later, he returned with a sniffling Whitney attached to his hip and three Plain Badges. Aaron and Alan turned to leave, but Lillian coughed and they looked at her.

"Um, Morty?" she began. The man looked at her. "I think you and Pryce have forgotten—I already have your badges. I just missed Whitney's, and my friends needed yours."

The two men blinked in surprise, and turned around to huddle and whisper between them.

Lillian waited impatiently, as always, until they turned back around and presented her with two eggs. She sighed, muttered something along the lines of, "great more baby Pokemon," before accepting them with a smile.

The trio left, and went off to do Trainer things.

A/N

...Okay, pretty short. Sorry about that, but it's getting late and I have to get up early tomorrow. I wanted to update SOMETHING, since it's been waay too long.

I'd like to thank ultima-owner and Rayquaza45 for reviewing. It's nice to know that people like my story well enough to comment ^^

Also, for Rayquaza45, the multiple 0's are to mark time skips. I would usually use hyphens, but when the file is uploaded to the site, they disappear. I've seen other writers use letters or words, so I figured that something like the number zero would stay in the document, and it saved me some time. :)


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